Dhi Youth Movement

You might have read me blabber about DYM, which is this awesome thing started by Nawaf, who is this awesome guy. Our slogan is "Keep Moving Forward, Open New Doors, Do New Things, Be Curious and Have Fun!". I might have written about a group we met in London called Refugee Youth which is a place where people who are from other countries, but residing in London come together and share their stories, network, eat, play and generally have an amazing time. We were so inspired by them and the things they were doing to spread awareness and for the causes that they believed in.

image from Nawaf 

Nawaf is the main guy behind DYM, who came up with the logo and idea (It was called Dhi Heart before) but after Shaam's idea of DYM (which can also be acronym for Do You Mind. Cool, eh!) and after everyone found it a better name, we are working under DYM. Our mission is "to meet like minded youth, socialize, share knowledge, learn and most of all have some fun. We will be doing things out of the ordinary, make people turn around and give it another look, we are going to prove that change is possible and the Youth can be One ". Its mostly compromised of Nawaf's friends and mutual friends of our friends so basically we know each other, and we are constantly meeting new people as our activities happen and so far it has been a great journey with DYM.

image from Iyad 

Our first activity was inspired by the Grand Central Freeze by Improv Everywhere (seriously, read about their missions, which are pretty cool!) and we froze for 5 mins during different times at the Earth Hour Rally. It caught a lot of people's attention and was successful, and fun and we got to meet so many different people, while promoting a cause we strongly believed in. Our next activity was during the Mother Tongue Day Dhivehi Bahuge Dhuvas (Thanks to Liam for correcting me), where DYM made this huge Dhivehi scrabble board (that I blogged about last week) and it was amazing. I was unable to participate in the making due to uni stuff, but I did go to the event, where we played the game. Again, met many new people and kids and had a really good time making dhivehi words. 

We are always in the lookout for people (people who are enthusiastic and really want to be part of it), and we are constantly planning fun new things to do. You can check us out at

Twitter: @dhiyouth

Blog: dhiyouth.posterous.com

email: dhiyouthmovement@gmail.com

Weekend Reads

Hello Friday! I am not a huge fan of Friday, but these days it seems to be getting better. Fridays always remind me of Rebecca Black and that's not exactly a good thing. ha!

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Adi's beautiful story is coming together nicely, while Isha has been writing words that touch my soul. Bakerella's Peanut Butter brownies make me drool, even though I'm not a fan of PB. Mara and Kendi's style has been influencing me lately with their pretty polka dots and pencil skirts. Also fell in love with Katie's blog post about cute kitties, and the other Katie's happy things list. On more informative things, check out the awesome post about custom PowerPoint backgrounds by Carly.

This weekend, I am super busy watching too much Glee and Cougar Town, making a business plan for a very educational service, holding two focus groups on women and employment and attending some classes as well as Muntha's Scout ceremony. Busy days! Have a happy weekend guys!

Twenty things

Its been nearly two months since I turned the big two oh, but I've been only able to come up with my twenty things list because I have been super busy since my birthday. I loved being nineteen, and so far being twenty is not that bad. Yes I miss the teenage years, but I'm liking being mature despite the awful things it brings with it. So, here's my list.

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1. Have a wonderful relationship with my parents

2. Get into a volunteer program

3. Get a job

4. Start saving up to send my parents to Hajj

5. Start the "Pretties"

6. Graduate college

7. Finish an entire coloring book

8. Be in a relationship

9. Change my name for a day

10. Crash a wedding

11. Write a letter to JK Rowling

12. Make a jar of lucky paper stars

13. Throw an un-birthday party for classmates

14. Make an yearbook

15. Get a manicure

16. Improve my relationship with god

17. Learn to love people no matter what

18. Be a better friend

19. Become an early rise

20. Enjoy being 20

Basically I have stuff from my life list, and a bit of other things important to me, and some fun stuff. Mostly I want to do the twentieth thing. As much as I love making these lists, some of it always end up being not done, so this time, I'm hoping to get everything done by the time I turn twenty one, which I am dreading right now but then again it is the inevitable. Graceful passage through time, as Gigs say. ^^

The busy life

I am sorry for the lack of updates as I was really busy the last few days weeks doing all sorts of things including but not limited to stenciling, writing, and eating not in that particular order.

University has been going pretty well despite how many new people there are who are probably taking a degree in staring, or perhaps a diploma. Classes have been intense with too much lectures on strategies and marketing, but I've been enjoying them, especially the marketing parts. Last weekend we had to sell a destination in our International Marketing class, and our group chose NYC! We did an amazing presentation (and by amazing I mean megafreakingawesome) where we wore I <3 NY shirts and told every one how brilliant NYC is, and the lecturer was impressed. Another job well done.

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I have also been participating in Dhi Youth Movement which is this amazing thing where youth come together and use creative measures to celebrate special days, network and mostly have fun. On saturday because it was the Mother tongue day, we made a huge Dhivehi scrabble board and made words with kids. It was super fun. I shall hopefully blog about DYM and its fun-tastic activities soon.

 

image from Nawaf

This week, I am reading some Chinese literature attending lots of classes most of which keep getting cancelled, writing letters to organizations for internship, thinking of Maldivian products to market internationally for a class, being exciting for getting sorted into Slytherin in Pottermore and celebrating birthdays. 

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On a personal level, I feel like people keep going away, ignoring me and generally being very distant. Life is good otherwise.

Post London Life

I just had to include London in the title. :P

Anyhow, since coming back, I've mostly been sick (STILL coughing constantly, not a good feeling) and unable to adjust back properly. I came back on 24th and slept for nearly 23 hours, and got up the next day (my record still stands at 26 hours after I came back from India) and had an exam the very next day, of which I was so sure I was going to flunk, but Masha Allah I passed. I had a tough week last week with lots of classes and catching up on studies, etc.

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This week is worse. I had an individual assignment due on Tuesday (on Entrepreneurship of which my assignment was mostly about Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Bieber.You see, when I have to resort to writing about Bieber on an assignment, it is the hieght of un-inspiredness!) and a propsal due today, which I have submitted, phew! Apart from this, Nawaf and I had been working every night till 12 (and him until the wee hours of  3 and 4 at dawn!) on the narration for our London documentry. Yes, we're celebrities and no, we are currently unavailable for any intereviews due to time constraints. I'll have my people call your people when I'm free. 

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Also so many exciting things have been happening such as un-birthday presents (Thanks to M for the Cakepops and HP cookbook and Lilly Pulitzer folders! Totally made my year!), Dhi<3 and its projects, lots of drama at Uni, getting my stories published and love from many people. I feel blessed to be here right now.

My classmates and  I are planning a picnic tomorrow, a family outing on Saturday, so its gonna be a busy weekend. Life is just good!

London Trip: How I Felt

Because London is a metro city and because I have been in love with it since forever, the whole experience was magical. I'm one of those people who like a lot of things, and have a generally good view of most things, things that other people look upon with an unamused face, such as airline food. I do enjoy airline food and traveling, especially the on air entertainment. While on the way to London, I spent the time in the plane watching old Hindi songs, and listening to Adele and sleeping while coming back. I also had the window seat and therefore saw the beautiful views during both the Dubai landing and the London landing.

 

London is a beautiful city with its good infrastructure really old buildings and nice people. The roads are HUGE and very clean. There are bins everywhere and I even loved the cold. In fact, apart from having a bad reaction to the cold (especially my lips) I was all OK. Because we lived in-front of a beautiful park where daffodils grew and the view was fantastic, I got up every morning and spent around 10 minutes looking at the view, memorizing every little detail from the building next to us with its marble floor to the big green dome of the British Museum that we could see far away. Everything about it was magical. I felt exactly how I felt while I was at Taj Mahal a few years back, at the second floor looking down the rivers Ganga and Yamna and wanting to freeze time cos that moment was perfect. That was my happy place. Now, I have two happy places that I go to whenever I feel down, and that feels good.

I loved how everything was so fast, yet so slow. The people were always at a rush, a different kind of rush than in Maldives but because the place was old, you could feel that time was going slow, that you were a part of this big historical event. Maybe all this might seem a little dramatic to you, but it all brings such good feelings, like that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you touch a cashmere sweater or feel the wind in your hair. London brought with it a new inspiration by just being there. 

There is so much to do and it's beyond crazy. Maybe its because we come from this tiny country where if you have two places to go at the same day, you feel like life is so amazing, but when you've been to a place that is just so happening, coming back here feels so dull. It's like there's almost no life here. People walk so slow in broad daylight as if they were strolling down a park, which makes me very irritated. Maybe because I've been so accustomed to the London walk. My friends joke about this all the time.

 

This all brings me to a question I've been asked several times, most recently during a conversation I had with Nawaf on whether I'd go live in a place like London forever. I love London and everything about it but somehow forever seems to scare me. I love Maldives, even with its staring people, its congested roads, its unfairness to people and all the crap about politics and power. For me, this is always home and always will be. I might go live somewhere for a year or two or even ten, but I'll always come back home, because no matter what, I'm a Maldivian girl at heart.

PS, I have left the posts about places and London life which I hope to do sometime later, since you are probably going to be bored hearing about London all the time. :P

London Trip: The People

Super sorry that I was unable to update this sooner, you see my hard where I had stored all pics caught a virus and I'm getting it fixed and therefor have no photos to show whatsoever! >.< Don't you just hate when you have an awesome story to tell, but no pictures to prove it? Me too!

 

Well, I met lots of amazing people throughout the trip, and my favorite is definetely Susanna Darch, who was our chaperon the very first day and came to pick us up at Gatwick. She is extremely friendly and has been doing community work for nearly 12 years. She is also involved with British Youth Council (BYC) which is one of the organizations that thought us a lot during the trip. We also met several people from BYC including the chairperson (methinks) David, James (who is absolutely charming and taught us about democracy and various aspects of it), Alex (the youngest person we met from BYC who was a member of the British Youth Parliament and is very passionate about climate. I love this guy! He even took us to see Platform 9 3/4, Kings cross.) and Liam who is super tall (making us look even shorter than our original heights) and he took us to the parliament. We also met Derek who made us come up with an objective of what we should do next, and was of great help in making us learn about the challenges we would face and was a great inspiration. On our free day, Lisa also from BYC were with us and she was absolutely brilliant. I love how passionate she was about her area of child protection and she spent the entire day with us. One of the things that made me respect her even more is that when we entered this Muslim award funstion that we were invited to, she put on her scarf to cover her hair. The respect she showed there was inspiring.

 

Harriet from the Parliament house was just sweet and she was there for the two days we visited the parliament. I was lucky to get the chance to shadow the work of a House of Commons memeber and I got John Glen, whose constituency was Salisbury, the same town that our former president Nasheed studied in. He and his assistant Stuart was more than welcoming and spent the entire time with me. We discussed about the political environment in Maldives, about John's work and his constiuency, the proceedings of HoC, and how he reaches to the people in Salisbury. Stuart was friendly and took me to lunch with his friends who were an amzing bunch of pretty people. He even took me to see the queen, who we saw from a distance as she entered the HoC to give her address.

The young and fun people from Refugee Youth; Blake, Paul from England, Frederico, Sian, Abera, Hinda and all the rest were really friendly and we played so many games with them. Each of them had a cause that they supported and they cooked us an Indian dinner, which was delicious. These people inspired me so much to create something that would last a long time and involve lots of people.

 

Saad and Aishah from Young Muslims Advisory Group (YMAG) were too kind. They spent two days with us, and introduced us to many people. They ven hosted a social for us where we met Fran from debatemate, a very enthusiastic guys named Mohamed who was extremely sweet and had lots to ask us, Jasmine and Rukiah from Love Life generation whose spirit and determination was something I wish I had. Khadijah from the Ilford youth centre was inpiring with her girls team and how they got together to learn new things like gardening. 

The little kids we met from the school we went were excellent. They were hardly thirteen but they carried out a very well researched and interesting debate on Syria and I was stunned at how informative they were. 

We also met several other people who were all very friendly and people that I hope to keep in touch with. I am glad to have met them and learned about their work. All these people inspire me to become a better person, and to be the change.  

PS, All pics from Nawaf's facebook page. They were all taken by Nawaf and I don't own any of them.